Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka1804 was born into a family of manor owners in Basque Village, Novos City, Smolensk Province. This is a place with vast fields, forests and beautiful music. In this charming and quiet environment, glinka was influenced by the beauty of Russian nature and became familiar with Russian folk customs. He often hears beautiful folk songs from country singers and wet nurses. Especially my uncle's serf band, has a far-reaching influence on glinka's musical talent and even the future development of music.
This serf band often played western European music, from which glinka was exposed to the overtures and symphonies of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mei Yu and Cherubini, was inspired by music and became interested in music. At first, he was just an audience. Later, while learning piano, he learned violin from serf musicians, so he became a member of the band. The serf band is not only his "source of joy", but also the cradle for cultivating future national musicians. What fascinated Jeangeorges W glinka most was Russian folk songs. He often sits for hours at a time. I forgot everything around me and sighed, "Music is my soul". These simple and beautiful Russian folk songs deeply touched glinka, and made him absorb rich nutrients from electricity, which laid a solid foundation for his life-long creation of national music. Later, glinka said in his autobiography Reading Notes that when he devoted most of his energy to the study of Russian folk music, the folk songs he heard in his childhood became the primary reason and main basis for his creation. These folk songs enabled him to compose national operas Ivan Susanen, ruslan and lyudmila. At the same time, in close contact with serf musicians, glinka cultivated his affinity for the masses and democratic thoughts.
18 12 A patriotic war against Napoleon's aggression broke out in Russia. At that time, although glinka was only 8 years old, he witnessed the traces of cruel fighting; I heard with my own eyes a vivid story of a people's guerrilla who fought bravely against the enemy. The heroic achievements and patriotic enthusiasm of the Russian people aroused the composer's national consciousness and became one of the sources of his later works "Tragic Opera of National Heroes" and "Ivan Susanin". It is said that in 18 14, the Russian government designated 12 as the liberation day, and asked the whole country to ring bells for one day to celebrate. So, on this day two years ago, in glinka's hometown, the church bells calling on the people to fight against Napoleon's army rang again. The jubilant victory bell has been echoing over the village of Basinke in Novos from morning till night. Twenty-two years later, on 1838, the bell symbolizing the Russian national spirit reappeared in Ivan Susanen's last chorus "Ode to Glory", which premiered at the Petersburg Grand Theatre.
18 18, 14 Luo glinka was sent to the aristocratic boarding school attached to the Central Normal School in Petersburg. This has enabled glinka to expand from a remote and isolated village to a colorful art world with a broad vision. In his spare time, he had the opportunity to go to the Grand Theatre to watch operas, attend concerts and participate in various aristocratic family performances, from which he was exposed to a wide range of musical works, mainly Italian and French operas and German-Austrian symphonies. At the same time, he also included the creations of Russian predecessors.
During his study, glinka studied piano, violin and music theory with famous foreign musicians Field and Meyer in Petersburg. Although most of the skills taught to glinka by these two musicians did not exceed those used by Russian composers, nor did they exceed the skills necessary for the music life of cities and urban families at that time, especially the music entertainment in aristocratic salons! However, after all, glinka received a more formal music education and became familiar with the musical style of city music, which is an important part of Russian music. Most of his initial music creations were variations. For example, variations on the theme of Mozart's works; This kind of variation creation method with popular names as the theme was very popular in Russian urban music life at that time.
1822 after graduating from school, glinka went to the Caucasus for illness in the second year. Glinka was deeply impressed by the beautiful scenery in the south of China, the living customs of mountain residents and the unique music and dance. This has accumulated rich materials for his future music works with oriental characteristics.
After returning from the Caucasus, glinka lived in his hometown for a period of time and personally participated in the performances and conducting activities of serf bands. In this practical work, he learned a lot about orchestra. This work also prompted him to create orchestral works, and he loved orchestral creation all his life. His orchestral works "Andante and Rondo" and "Symphony in B flat major" written in 1824 are his first works in this field. Although these works are immature, it is commendable that glinka adopted Russian folk songs as the theme and developed them with the variation techniques commonly used in Russian folk music.
At this point, it can be said that it is the preparatory stage of glinka's life-long creative activities.
From 65438 to 0824, 20-year-old glinka worked in the Ministry of Communications in Petersburg and entered the initial stage of creation.
Although glinka holds a public office, most of his energy and enthusiasm are devoted to amateur music activities. He listens to concerts; Learn vocal music from Italian singers and join amateur music groups such as duets, chorus and piano ensemble; Go out to attend music salons, participate in performances and make friends in the music and art circles. In the tense music life, glinka gradually became an excellent pianist and singer, which made him gain a high reputation in the music salon in Petersburg, and was called "a talented amateur music activist".
During this period, glinka's interest gradually shifted from playing to composing. Music is not only the entertainment of the salon for him, but he began to seriously study the theory of composition and put it into creative practice. In symphonies, sonatas, ensembles and other large-scale works, as the research object, glinka consciously imitated the style of western European classical musicians. Created in the style of Haydn Mozart. The string quartet in F major is one of the representative works. At the same time, glinka also created some piano works with high playing skills and originality, such as Piano Variations in F Major. These works show the technical features of Terrinca's piano music. However, in glinka's early works, most of them were immature romances, which basically failed to shake off the traditional theme and usual tone of sentimental urban romances, such as poor singers and comfort. During this period, most of glinka's instrumental music works were also related to Sharon's music and entertainment, mainly piano variations, dance music and lyric songs with soft tunes and elegant styles, such as Nocturne in E flat major.
December Party Uprising broke out in Petersburg. Communist party's patriotic upsurge in Russia in December greatly inspired outstanding artists including glinka, which had a far-reaching impact not only on glinka's early creation, but also on his life's creative path.
As early as studying in glinka,1February, party member's thought of freedom was widely circulated among advanced intellectuals in Petersburg. Some teachers and classmates in the aristocratic boarding schools in glinka are party member and enlightenment scholars in December. Kucher Becker, a professor and tutor of literature in glinka, is a passionate patriot and a famous party member in The Decemberists. His enthusiastic advocacy of people's nature and patriotism in Russian literature had a positive impact on glinka. Cuhel Bekel is Pushkin's classmate and closest friend. glinka met Pushkin in his home and forged a deep friendship with Pushkin in the late 1920s. Since then, glinka has created many excellent romantic works with Pushkin's poems. During this period, glinka also met the playwright Glipoyedov. These two writers gave enthusiastic encouragement and support to glinka's attempt in folk music creation, and influenced glinka's artistic view with the thoughts of nationality and democracy in their friendly conversation. At that time, Russian national literature represented by Pushkin and Gribo Chudov was the most glorious period, and the prosperity of national literature promoted the maturity of glinka's national music thought.
In the art salon in Petersburg, glinka also met many other outstanding Russian artists, such as poets zhukovsky and Gerwig. Odoyevski, a literary critic, and Earl Yale Gorschi, a famous music activist and connoisseur. Although conservative, they are all folk lovers and enthusiastic supporters of Russian folk songs. A lot of romanticism with national style in glinka is based on their poems and is supported by them.
Glinka didn't oppose the czar's autocracy and serfdom, and there was a big gap with The Decemberists in politics. It is inappropriate to directly link glinka's creation with the social revolution of December Party members, that is, the struggle against autocratic serfdom, or to equate glinka with December Party members and exaggerate the influence of December Party members' movement on glinka. However, as a powerful social ideological trend, party member's patriotic thought in December inspired Greene's patriotic enthusiasm, and the seeds of national music thought hidden in his mind began to sprout. Especially the fact that Russian upper class generally worships western European music and Russian music is discriminated against has aroused glinka's desire to create for Russia. This prompted him to pay more attention to drawing nutrition from national folk music and consciously explore Russian national music creation.
In this way, in the early days of Petersburg's creation, in addition to the above-mentioned habits and imitative works, glinka also created some works with new factors different from the aristocratic enslavement art, especially his impromptu variations on the theme of Russian folk songs in the music salon and his own romance of writing, playing and singing, which more prominently showed his strong national consciousness and outstanding creative talent. The romance novel Don't Seduce Me is glinka's early successful work. This song creatively uses the traditional Russian romantic techniques and shows glinka's personal style for the first time.
In Petersburg's early creative life, glinka's sense of national responsibility and enterprising spirit was enhanced, and he was determined to become a real Russian musician. He clearly realized that if Russian music works want to be recognized at home and in the world, they can't stay at the existing creative level of music lovers and Russia; People must master the world's first composition skills. So 1830 went abroad for further study.
In Germany, he systematically studied composition theory from Dean, a famous European music theorist, and deeply studied the classical music works of Handel and others. In Vienna, he listened to the dance music of old Strauss and Lanier, which was popular at that time. Especially in Italy, he stayed for three years, completely immersed in the Italian "Bel Canto" vocal art which was in a prosperous period at that time; Bei Lini's and Donizetti's operas, pasta's and Roubini's singing often amazed him. He devoted himself to studying the genre and melody development skills of Italian vocal music. At the same time, he also widely contacted the emerging romantic music art in Europe, and met the romantic composer Berlioz and others.
During his four years abroad, glinka mastered the advanced composition skills in the world at that time, and became familiar with Italian and romantic music styles, which brought new features to his creation. We can clearly see the influence of Italian music, especially vocal music, from romantic works such as Night in Venice, Winner and Piano String Sextet in E flat major. In Guo Qin, clarinet, Basson's tragic trio and other works, we can see the style characteristics of romantic music.
Glinka's works in Italy, especially those with Italian themes and styles, such as variations and serenades based on the opera themes of Bei Lini and Donizetti, have been highly praised and welcomed by local audiences. However, the deeper the study of western European music, the clearer glinka's fate as a Russian musician. He can't get real happiness and inspiration in his creation, and an uneasy mood often torments him. He doesn't think he should write for Russia according to the Italian style. He thinks his works cater to the interests of Italian residents. I can only convince him that he is "not on his own path." He said, "I really don't want to be Italian. The nostalgia for the motherland gradually made me write in the Russian way. " (See autobiography Notes) So, 1834, he resolutely decided to return to the motherland.
When passing through Germany, glinka's vague creative ideas in Italy became clearer and clearer. He wants to write a Russian opera "not only the theme is national, but also the music is national" (see the letter to the unknown C.T. in June 65438 +0834+10). In Germany, glinka wrote two works of special significance to realize his own opera creation plan, namely, Russian theme capriccio and symphony overture. Although these two works have not been finalized, glinka not only shows the life of the Russian people in his creation, but also tries all the composing techniques he learned from Russian folk music. It can be said that the national techniques used in glinka's later mature creation have been preliminarily practiced here. Therefore, these two works are called "special drafts of the opera Ivan Susanen and the symphony Fantasia of Kamalinskaya".
The idea of writing a national opera excited glinka. Shortly after returning to the motherland, glinka began to compose the opera Ivan Susanen. In the process of creation, he was possessed and inspired constantly, so that the fine outline of the whole opera and even many themes "suddenly broke out" in his mind (see autobiography "Reading Notes").
According to historical facts, Ivan Susanen tells the story of 17 th century when Polish feudal lords invaded Russia and farmer Susanen died defending his motherland. Before glinka, Reiliyev, a member of The Decemberists, awakened the people with Su Shaning's spirit of sacrifice in his poem Meditation. Tsar Nicholas I was also interested in this subject. Taking advantage of the social influence of the patriotic thought of December Party members, Nicholas's government put forward the theory of "official patriotism" loyal to the czar, landlords and the Orthodox Church, and tried to find artistic themes to advocate this reactionary theory. Therefore, as a court poet at that time, Rukovski provided glinka with the theme of "Su Shaning" after learning about his creative desire. According to Nicholas I's will, Luo Zhong, a royal scholar, was appointed to write the play, and the name of the work was changed to "For the Tsar", which made the opera run through the idea of loyalty to the monarch. At that time, the opera was welcomed by the royal family and was designated as the official drama of the festival. It is no accident that glinka caused these problems in his operas, which reflects his limitations as an aristocratic intellectual.
However, after all, glinka was influenced by folk music since childhood, and later by l8 12 patriotic trend of thought in the Great Patriotic War and The Decemberists Movement. He is an artist whose folk music thoughts are gradually maturing. His main creative intention is to write a real national opera for the motherland. He readily adopted the theme of "Ivan Susanen", and the sparks of inspiration kept erupting in his creation, mainly because this theme matched his strong desire to create "Tragic Opera of National Heroes". Glinka devoted his ardent patriotic enthusiasm to his works, which condensed his painstaking efforts to explore the creation of national music for many years. Therefore, this opera not only marks the maturity of glinka's national music thought, but also makes great achievements in the creation of Russian classical music. Glinka summed up the achievements of predecessors in this work. On the basis of absorbing the nutrition of national music and the advanced skills of western European music, he created the first truly world-class national opera in Russia. This opera is called "The Dawn of Russian Opera". It not only illuminates the creative path of Russian opera, but also has great significance for the development of Russian national music. Therefore, it has won warm cheers and high praise from Russian advanced people, who believe that this opera has opened up a new era of Russian music.
/kloc-in the spring of 0/837, glinka began to compose the opera Ruslan and lyudmila. This is a mythical opera adapted from Pushkin's long poem of the same name. In the decades after the premiere of 1842, it caused a heated debate in the Russian music industry. People criticized the drama's tendency to be divorced from reality and its lack of unified script conception. At the same time, they also made a pertinent analysis of the achievements of this opera and pointed out its important position in the history of Russian music. This opera has distinctive national and folk music features, high artistic skills, heroic theme and optimism. Together with Ivan Susanen, he laid the foundation of two basic branches of Russian classical opera-mythical epic drama and people's historical drama.
Glinka returned to China 1834 to 1844. Besides two operas, he also wrote many excellent works. This decade is the maturity and heyday of his creation.
1839, he symphonied Russian dance music in the famous orchestral "Fantasy Waltz", which showed the special position of dance music factor in Russian symphonic music and opera. It not only directly influenced the creation of Russian symphony music and opera dance music, but also promoted the creation of Russian dance music. Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky, Glazunov and others' ballet, opera and symphony creations were most significantly influenced by him.
1840, glinka set the music for I kukol Nick's tragedy Kholmski. These scores provide valuable creative experience for the symphonization of Russian drama music and the dramatic development of symphonic music.
In this decade, glinka also wrote his most valuable romantic works. For example, Pushkin's romantic poems "Remember that wonderful moment", "The flame of hope burns in the blood" and the vocal suite "A Farewell to Petersburg" and so on. These romantic songs absorb and develop the creative achievements of Russian urban folk songs and romanticism, and at the same time get rid of their old sentimental sentiment and stereotyped expression formulas. It shows glinka's perfect and mature creative personality, pushes Russian vocal music art to a new stage, and has an important influence on the vocal music creation of later composers such as Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky.
In addition, from 1837 to 1839, glinka was appointed as the band leader of the court choir, and he also made outstanding contributions to the development of Russian chorus art during his work.
From 65438 to 0844, glinka, as a mature artist who created many excellent works, went abroad for the second time. The reason for going abroad this time is, on the one hand, to get rid of the difficulties in creation and life-his works and work are not understood in the upper class, and he is given a cold shoulder and his marriage is unfortunate; On the other hand, it is to seek new creative impulse and fresh artistic impression, and satisfy my "fiery imagination" since childhood. In Paris, glinka established a sincere friendship with Berlioz, who was already famous at that time. Berlioz enthusiastically introduced and spoke highly of the Russian composer to western European audiences in his concerts and music papers. Glinka's works were performed in Paris and achieved great success. In Paris, glinka also came into contact with the active music life in Europe and the new works, new atmosphere and new trends in the music industry at that time. This not only satisfies glinka's desire for novel and colorful music, but also recognizes from Berlioz's works and the appreciation interest of local audiences that it is a new requirement of romantic music to create orchestral music that is more intense, more frank and unrestrained in emotional expression and more "gorgeous and brilliant" in style and effect than in the past. So he decided to go to Spain. He thinks that colorful Spanish music is an excellent material for creating such works. He wants to enrich his repertoire and broaden his creative horizons.
In Spain, glinka directly went deep into the ordinary people in Spain, devoted himself to studying local music, and earnestly learned Spanish dances closely related to Spanish music from local teachers. He has written two overtures, Aragon Horta and Night in Madrid, which reflect the living customs of the Spanish people and have distinctive Spanish musical styles. These two works reflect the influence of romantic music on him. Glinka pioneered the European professional composers' extensive use of Spanish themes to create music, and these two works became the beginning for Russian composers to create orchestral works with foreign themes. After glinka, Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky, Linsky-Kosakov and others all created Spanish and Italian band works.
Glinka returned to China in 1847, and composed the symphony "Fantasia of Kamalinskaya" in 1848. Glinka never wrote a symphony in his life, but in Kamalinskaya, he successfully used the artistic achievements of European classical music, creatively inherited and developed the national tradition of Russian music, symphonized Russian folk songs and wrote the first real Russian national symphony. Later Russian symphony composers grew up along the road opened by this work. Therefore, Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky said: "Kamalinskaya" gave birth to the whole Russian symphony music.
Glinka spent his old age in a melancholy mood. Although glinka has made great achievements in his creation, the Russian aristocratic society has not realized the true artistic value and historical contribution of his works. Glinka's works are often met with cold reception and malicious slander, and the performance opportunities are getting less and less, and sometimes even completely excluded. Glinka painfully ran abroad from Petersburg and returned to the motherland from abroad. Frequent migration failed to eliminate the depression in his chest, and his creative will was almost destroyed. He said: "Worry, sadness and suffering destroyed me, and I completely lost my courage." (See letter1855165438+129 October) He thinks that his art died of the "suffocating indifference" of society. In this case, glinka's creativity in his later years decreased obviously. 1852 and 1856 went abroad twice and lived abroad for several years without writing anything. He once conceived large-scale works, such as the title symphony Taras Polba and the opera Bigamy, but none of them came true. Over the years, he left only some romances (Cup of Congratulations, Acer, Song of Margarita and Gulf of Finland). ), piano music (divertimento to pay tribute to the motherland, variations on Scottish themes) and band arrangement (invitation to dance, friendship memorial). However, the dramatic tendency in romance is obviously strengthened.
It should be mentioned that in the early 1950s, a group of young people opposed to the aristocratic society gathered around glinka. They are the backbone of Russian national music movement in the future: literary theorist Stasov, critic and composer Xie Luofu, composers Dargomesky and Balakirev. They supported glinka with firm attitude, sincere admiration and enthusiasm. 1852, Xie Luofu compiled the Collocation Rule based on glinka's talk. 1854, at the request of Stasov, glinka wrote an autobiographical reading note, which is the most valuable document to study glinka's creative thoughts and works. In creation, young friends always encourage glinka, hoping to revive the creativity of this heavy-hearted composer. Although their efforts did not fully achieve their goals, glinka's musical tradition was directly inherited by them. Dargomersky became the first national composer after glinka, and both Stasov and Balakirev were the leaders of the "Strength School" of Russian national music school in 1960s.
1856, glinka left the motherland for the last time and never came back. 15 February 15 He died in Berlin.